Arthur I. Cyr: India-Pakistan confrontation overshadows progress

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Mar 5, 2019 at 9:58 AMMar 5, 2019 at 9:59 AM

Armed conflict between India and Pakistan has returned. An attack in disputed Kashmir has killed 40 Indian police. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility. Limited combat between forces of the two nations has followed. Both have nuclear weapons, drastically increasing the risks.

In early 2016, militants raided an India military base. The United Jihad Council, a Kashmir group, claimed credit. Simultaneously, terrorists attacked an India consulate in Afghanistan.

Only a week earlier, the India Prime Minister had visited Pakistan. The attacks threatened talks involving Afghanistan, India and Pakistan along with China and the U.S. Ethnic violence occurred again in July that year.

In 2012, Taliban attackers shot young Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan in revenge for her advocacy of education for females. She survived, and has become a vital international symbol of courage. Vital Voices Global Partnership, a nonprofit organization to empower girls and women, established the Malala Fund.

Global media emphasis on incidents involving U.S. military ally Pakistan reflects the region’s strategic importance, but overshadows democratic progress. In September 2013, Mamnoon Hussain succeeded Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, who did not seek reelection. This was the first peaceful presidential transition in the country. India has long-established political democracy.

In May 2013, National Assembly elections provided a significant victory to Nawaz Sharif and his opposition Pakistan Muslim League-N. Despite violence, turnout in these elections was approximately 60 percent.

The orderly office handover to the opposition represents a distinctive departure from the nation’s history of military coups. Sharif was prime minister twice earlier. He was forced out of the post in 1999 in a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf, and spent more than a decade in exile in Saudi Arabia.

The election was a serious reversal for the powerful Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) dominated by the Bhutto family, and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI). Charismatic Benazir Bhutto was prime minister twice. She was making a dramatic third effort to win national power when brutally assassinated late in December 2007. The PTI returned to power in 2018 and Khan is prime minister.

Pakistan-U.S. relations are vexed. Pakistan, since 9/11, is a front line in the struggle against terrorism. Targeted killings of individuals by American drone aircraft have caused controversy.

Osama bin Laden’s ability to hide in Abbottabad raised suspicion that Pakistan officials may have been complicit in concealing him. That government was not informed in advance of the U.S. SEAL Team 6 raid which killed him.

That Pakistan possesses nuclear weapons vastly raises the stakes of a possible radical takeover of power. Pakistan and U.S. militaries cooperate closely on securing these weapons, in a long-established durable partnership.

Historically, the nation has been a relatively solid ally of the West, a point almost always overlooked in media commentary. The British-trained military is extremely capable. During the Cold War, Pakistan was generally a conservative counter-weight to neutralist India and communist China.

In the 1950s, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles ensured that this important ally joined both the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), designed to replicate NATO in the Middle East and South Asia respectively. Pakistan and Britain were distinctive as members of both alliances. The alliances are long gone but geostrategic importance of South Asia continues.

Pakistan has defused the current crisis by releasing a captured Indian pilot. Leaders of both nations have emphasized restraint given the nuclear dimension.

The U.S. should employ disciplined diplomacy for peaceful resolution.

Arthur I. Cyr is Clausen Distinguished Professor at Carthage College and author of “After the Cold War” (NYU Press and Macmillan). Contact him at acyr@carthage.edu.

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